Augustine and the Doctrine of the Logos

Austin aka Augustine admitted he himself had the same opinion as the Ebionites that Jesus was merely a man "till he became acquainted with the writings of Plato, which in his time were translated into Latin and in which he learned the doctrine of the Logos." (Joseph Priestly, Corruptions of Christianity (1782)(reprint - London: The British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 1871) at 4.)

In his Confessions, Augustine borrowed heavily from Plato. He agreed with Plato about the status of transcendent Ideas, but he did so in an altered form. Augustine agreed that the Ideas constituted the stable and unchangeable forms of all things and provided a solid basis for human knowledge, but he noted that Plato lacked an adequate doctrine of creation. He argued that Plato's metaphysical conception could be fulfilled by the Judaeo-Christian revelation of the supreme Creator. Augustine thus identified Plato's Ideas with the collective expression of God's Word, the Logos, and saw all archetypes as being contained within and expressing the being of Christ.